Glenn B. Wiggins

Glenn B. Wiggins

Curator Emeritus

Area: Natural History, Biodiversity

Phone: 416.586.5894

Bio

Ph.D., Entomology, University of Toronto, 1958

IN MEMORIAM

Glenn Wiggins — Curator Emeritus of Entomology at the Royal Ontario Museum, and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto — died in his sleep on July 7, 2013.

Glenn began his career at the ROM in 1952. His research, which he continued since retiring from the ROM in 1992, dealt with aquatic insects, especially the biosystematics of caddisflies (order Trichoptera) on which he published four books and more than 100 articles in scientific journals and books (see publications list below). During his curatorial tenure, he conducted an extensive program of field studies through much of North America, building for the ROM one of the major research collections of Trichoptera in the world. He was also actively engaged in the educational outreach programs of the Museum through organization of numerous public lectures and gallery displays. Permanent exhibits of live insects and recordings of insect songs were introduced into the Museum in a new Gallery of Arthropods, which he initiated in the 1970s. He was instrumental in the establishment of two new curatorial departments in the Museum – Botany in 1969 and Invertebrate Zoology in 1979. In 1968 he organized a successful application to the National Research Council of Canada for a Negotiated Development Grant to establish a new laboratory of analytical and molecular systematics in the Museum.

In 1988-1991 he served on the NSERC Grant Selection Committee for Evolution and Ecology. He presented numerous invitational lectures on aquatic entomology at various professional conferences and universities, and was a Visiting Professor conducting field courses in aquatic entomology at biological stations of several universities.

Glenn was an elected member of the Executive Board Entomological Society of Canada from 1979 to 1983, and President of the Society in 1981-82 (1981-82, 1983a). He was a founding member of the Society’s Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods), serving on the Scientific Committee of the Survey from 1976 to 1991 (1991). As President of the Entomological Society, he became a member of the Biological Council of Canada in 1981 and was elected Vice-President, remaining on the BCC until 1985 (1983b, c). He was appointed as a Fellow of the Entomological Society of Canada in 1982 for major contributions to Entomology. He received the 1992 Gold Medal of the Entomological Society of Canada for outstanding achievement (1992e). In 2006 he was elected as an Honorary Member of the Entomological Society of Ontario.

Glenn's most recent publication, Biological Notes on an Old Farm: Exploring Common Things in the Kingdoms of Life, encourages us to stop and look at the smaller organisms such as plants, fungi, insects and bacteria that play important roles in sustaining life on Earth. This book received the Silver Medal for science in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, 2010.

Glenn Wiggins was truly a giant in his field and will be sorely missed.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Wiggins, G.B. 2009. "Biological Notes on an Old Farm: Exploring Common Things in the Kingdoms of Life." Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.